A rendering shows a planned 34-story apartment tower at East 17th Street and Euclid Avenue in Playhouse Square, at the edge of downtown Cleveland's theater district. Playhouse Square Foundation is moving forward on the $135 million project after years of conversations and explorations with developers. (SCB)

A rendering shows the planned Playhouse Square apartment tower from Euclid Avenue. The lower-slung building is a 550-space parking garage. The project will replace a 140-space parking lot owned by affiliates of the Playhouse Square Foundation. (SCB)

A rendering shows the planned 34-story, 319-unit apartment tower at the edge of Playhouse Square. Construction could start late this year and wrap up by early 2020. (SCB)

This parking lot, owned by affiliates of the Playhouse Square Foundation, will become a development site. The property spans just over an acre. (Michelle Jarboe/The Plain Dealer)

An overhead view shows the parking lot next to the Hanna Building that is earmarked for an apartment tower and parking garage. Playhouse Square has owned most of the property since 1999 and acquired the last piece two years ago. (Google Earth)

A ground level view of the site of the future apartment tower planned for Playhouse Square, as seen from Euclid Avenue looking southwest near East 17th Street.

The ground level plan for the apartment tower designed for Playhouse Square show how residents would enter the tower's garage from Euclid Avenue and theatergoers would enter from East 17th Street. (SCB)

Plans for the amenity level of the new apartment tower designed for Playhouse Square indicate gardens and a swimming pool. The gray area to the left is the tower's parking garage. (SCB)

CLEVELAND, Ohio - From almost every angle, the
34-story apartment tower
proposed for Playhouse Square by the eponymous nonprofit agency that runs the city's theater district should be a big plus for the immediate neighborhood and the entire city.

With 319 rental units and a 550-space parking garage, the $135 million project will enlarge the city's skyline, add more street life and consumer demand for local businesses, create a stronger sense of 24/7 vitality and provide additional parking for theatergoers.

All of those factors underscore the
pivotal role
Playhouse Square has played in literally saving the city's downtown by reclaiming theaters once slated for demolition and buying up surrounding buildings to function as a bricks-and-mortar endowment to meet its artistic goals.

Downtown residential expected to grow

If not for that remarkable success, downtown Cleveland might not be enjoying a renaissance that's projected to continue for decades.

But - and yes, there is a "but" here - the architectural design of the proposed tower, in a word, is underwhelming.

Playhouse Square chose as the project's designer the Chicago architecture firm of
Solomon Cordwell Buenz
, or SCB, which Blair Kamin, my nationally esteemed counterpart at the Chicago Tribune, has described as a "
workhorse
" firm "capable of good work," a
less than ringing
endorsement.

Melting into the sky

Conceptual plans shared by SCB with The Plain Dealer this week show that the tower, which would replace a surface parking lot at the southwest corner of Euclid Avenue and East 17th Street, would be a large slab in blue-tinted glass that would appear at most times of day and in most kinds of weather to melt into the sky.

The firm has complicated the form of the slab by angling large sections of its north facades outward like one-sided bays designed to grab westward views down Euclid toward Public Square.

SCB Principal
Devon Patterson
said in a phone interview the facade would angle outward four feet at the eighth floor, and another four feet at the 20
th
floor, producing two shallow triangular projections angled toward the west.

The building also will be notched at the northwest corner of the slab to provide additional sideways views west along Euclid Avenue, and it will have another wedge-like protrusion on the west facade.

Patterson's goal is to illuminate the underside of the protruding bays with red lighting that would create slices of color when viewed at night from sidewalks below.

Resembling Hilton

Otherwise, during the day, the effect of the tower will probably resemble that of the
Hilton Cleveland Downtown Hotel
on the northwest corner of the Mall, next to the Global Center for Health Innovation and the below-grade Huntington Convention Center of Cleveland.

On cloudy or blue-sky days from mid-morning to late afternoon, the Hilton melts into the sky. It appears light, insubstantial and not terribly exciting.

It's ok that Cleveland has one glassy downtown tower that melts into the sky, but how many more should it have?
Steven Litt, The Plain Dealer

On cloud-dappled days, the building becomes a mirror whose angled segments turn cloud patterns into a cubist composition of blue-and-white patterns. And on early mornings or storm days when the light angles low, the hotel produces lively, unexpected reflections against a darker background.

As the second such tower on the skyline, the Playhouse Square building should produce similar effects and have a similarly shy personality most of the time.

The new tower will be a supporting player, not a star, amid stronger buildings such as the 1921 neo-Renaissance
Hanna Building
just a block west at East 14
th
Street, or the lovely 1922 Beaux Arts-style
Keith Building
, directly across the street from the site of the proposed tower.

Designs still early

An important caveat, however, is that the design is still in its early stages, and could evolve. A lot may depend on whether the glass facades have sleek, precisely tailored parts, or a more generic, off-the-shelf look.

Another concern is the parking garage that would rise four stories from the Euclid Avenue sidewalk between the west flank of the new tower and the east end of the Hanna Building.

Patterson said it was not possible to produce the 550 spaces required for the garage and to wrap the Euclid Avenue facade with offices, apartments or retail.

This means that the garage will repeat the unfortunate pattern created in the 1970s and '80s throughout the downtown Erieview Urban Renewal District, in which office towers are flanked by garages that deaden stretches of Superior, Walnut, Rockwell and Chester avenues.

On the plus side, the upper three levels of the garage's Euclid Avenue side will be faced by perforated metal panels designed to evoke theater curtains. At night, Playhouse Square would flood light the metal curtain with images and graphics related to ongoing shows in the district.

No retail at first

At ground level on the Euclid side, the garage will initially have two-foot-deep display windows that Patterson said would be programmed by Playhouse Square.

In the future, as demand for retail rises in the neighborhood, Playhouse Square could sacrifice a row of parking at ground level and insert 5,000 square feet of retail in the garage.

Playhouse Square and the designers are working with the City of Cleveland to ensure safe and logical entries and exits to the garage. Residents will use a right-turn-in, right-turn-out garage door on Euclid Avenue, and theatergoers will use a two-way entry on the building's 17
th
Street side.

Playhouse Square isn't ready yet to share plans for the lobby and apartment units in the tower, but did share early plans for an outdoor amenity zone atop the four-story base of the tower with gardens, seating and a swimming pool.

The details look promising, and the tower will unquestionably add to the life of the city. And yet the overall design, at least in the early renderings shared so far, leaves one wanting more.